"0"^^ . "1"^^ . . . "2014-12-22T00:00:00"^^ . . "5"^^ . "5"^^ . "The first thing you should know is that I'm one of those people who don't take care of my hair at all. I'm not picky about the shampoo I use - in fact, I buy whichever brands that are on sale - and I don't do the whole leave-in conditioning or the hair oils stuff. As long as it's clean and it's not in my face, I'm 90% OK with it. But since I haven't cut my hair in about 7 months, and I started to call it \"gunk of hair\", and I had recently discovered a strand with about 5 split ends (on one single strand!), I figured that I need to go all out and find a salon that would actually take their time taking care of me instead of rushing to the next customer.\n\nNC Salon advertised on Facebook, and through Foursquare, I discovered a friend who visits this place, I decided to give this place a try. \n\nI booked for 1:00PM on a Monday, which is the time they open that day. I had to wait for a bit before I was serviced (maybe about 20 minutes?) but considering I rarely get my hair cut, and I had the day off, I didn't really mind the wait. Plus, I hadn't even decided what cut I was going for - I'm super indecisive and super lazy with my hair - so I didn't mind sitting there flipping through hairstyle magazines.\n\nThe shampoo person gave me a really nice head massage, and the receptionist lady offered me the hair magazines and a cup of tea - I had brought in Tim Hortons unfortunately - while I waited for my turn.\n\nThe stylist I had was named Jeffrey. He was pretty quiet and polite. I say polite because I'm so self-deprecating towards my hair, and knew for a fact my hair was 100% damaged and ugly, I kept asking him if my hair was really damaged, but he would just say, \"I think if we thin it out, it'll be better.\" Such an indirect answer, so polite. :P He was quiet, but because I also want to take better care of my hair, I asked him questions about the hair products he was using. He used some sort of heat protection cream before blow-drying, and then some sort of yellow hair oil at the end of the cut - which, by the way, left my hair ridiculously soft at the end. Hair gunk no more!\n\nPersonally, I think it would be advantageous in instructing the stylists here at this location if you can speak Mandarin. Most of the stylists here are Mandarin speakers - but they can understand Cantonese, no worries - but you can probably gain more hair tips that way if you can hold conversations with them. \n\nThat said though, I spent a good 5 to 10 minutes after my hair was done asking the receptionist lady (in English) about their ombre+balayage services. She told me their ombre+balayage services are more often done at their Yorkville location, but she was very knowledgeable about the whole hair dyeing process, so that was very helpful. \n\nI also found out that Christmas and Chinese New Year are their busiest times, so I feel quite fortunate I was able to squeeze in an appointment on the last Monday before Christmas.\n\nThe overall cost was just under $40 (tax included) for upper waist length hair, for a regular non-senior stylist. It's the same cost as you would get from a downtown Korean salon, so I don't find it a big deal. I would come back to this location again, instead of making the trip downtown!"^^ .